Sonic Lost World Gets Surprising DLC

Sega’s partnership with Nintendo has allowed the swift blue hedgehog to pop up in several Nintendo games, however, Sonic: Lost World‘s surprising new DLC has the hero popping up in an land that’s taken a lot of people by surprise: Hyrule, the famous setting of Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda series. Though Sonic: Lost World has been met with mostly average reviews, it is likely that this new downloadable content will spark some interest in the game. Also, Nintendo has made the content only available on Wii U, probably in hopes that this will generate some interest in the console. After all, who wouldn’t want to play a mash up of Sonic and Legend of Zelda? It’s a crazy conglomeration that, although comedic, looks like it has the potential to be a lot of fun for fans of both series.

As for gameplay, when Sonic travels to Hyrule, certain things change for him. He relies on hearts instead of rings, and the usual time constraints and linearity of Sonic games are replaced with an open world exploration style of gameplay, to evoke the feeling of actually playing a Legend of Zelda game. Players will engage all sorts of monsters from the Zelda library, and there is even a brief show of Sonic with the famed Tri-Force. From the trailer, it looks as though the DLC will provide ample amounts of fun for both older and younger gamers. The older crowd gets to see the two heroes from the great gaming rivalry of their youth, while the younger crowd gets to see Nintendo and Sega making the most out of their partnership.

A simple search of Sonic Lost World on twitter today will show that much of the gaming community is talking about this new DLC announcement, some expressing ridicule, others surprisingly intrigued by the notion of exploring the kingdom of Hyrule as the beloved blue hedgehog. Although Sonic is not necessarily the most favored or hyped game series, it is fun to see Nintendo offer an experience like this. To put the cherry on top, so to speak, in a surprising move Nintendo has made this Sonic: Lost World’s new DLC available for free.

Gamers everywhere have put Nintendo in a sort of hot seat, with the failure of its latest console, the Wii U, but it’s hard to hate a company that offers free DLC to its players. If only the Wii U was a more widely successful system, this act of generosity would probably spark more conversation. Unfortunately, given the status of the Wii U, Nintendo’s generosity could also be mistaken for desperation. There was a similar giveaway of free downloadable content during the laugh of their 3DS where players that bought the system originally at full price got access to downloads of the only Game Boy Advance virtual console titles on 3DS, the system then received a hefty price cut, however only those that paid full price got the games. But why be so critical of Nintendo? Why not just take the DLC and run with it? It might be an attempt to try to sell consoles, or it might not. If it is, certainly Nintendo could have picked a better game, but at the same time, a Sonic and Zelda mash up just seems too fun to have any real ulterior motive other than…fun.